Review: Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Series #13

Bardstown Bourbon Company just can’t help themselves. With their many distillery exclusives, and unique collaborations, the Discovery Series (or “Disco” to diehard fans) had become perhaps the most reliably straightforward annual release in their lineup. Well, not anymore. At its core this whiskey is still, like the last few releases, a blend of Kentucky bourbons, but now that blend is getting an exotic double barrel treatment.

Four Kentucky bourbons comprise the blend, but almost half (45%) is a 9-year-old with a mashbill of 74% corn, 18% rye, and 8% malted barley. Additional components include another 9-year-old bourbon (22%) with a recipe of 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley, a 15-year-old (20%) with a recipe of 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley, and finally an 8-year-old (13%) with a higher rye recipe of 70% corn, 21% rye, and 9% malted barley.

That blend gets a four-month double barrel finish with 60% placed into new American white oak aged on the lower floors of their Bardstown rickhouses while the remaining 40% was placed into premium Hungarian oak barrels that aged on higher floors, reportedly to promote better extraction from the tighter grain wood. We’re told this is the first foray into double barreling for the Discovery Series, suggesting there are probably more to come. Did BBCo. nail it on the first try?

Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Series #13 Double Barreled Review

The short finishing period in Hungarian oak (and for less than half of the blend) has altered the classic Kentucky bourbon profile only slightly on the nose, adding top notes of light roast coffee and milk chocolate to an otherwise straightforward, if exceptionally rich, aroma of baking spice, Demerara sugar, toffee and dark caramel. Those nuances are just barely there, and as the whiskey opens more, they become even harder to tease out of the glass replaced instead by big, sweet layers of toffee and sticky vanilla bean.

On the palate, the double-barreling is more noticeable and enduring with an entry of dark cherry, vanilla cream, and Tootsie Rolls that gives way to a warm, well-spiced midpalate of clove syrup, cinnamon apples, and toasted oak. The mouthfeel, round and plush, is a particular highlight, and as with so many BBCo. offerings, the higher proof is barely noticed. The finish is where the Hungarian oak seems to really shine, delivering a generous fadeout of mocha, chicory, and even a little pipe tobacco alongside some brighter cocktail cherry and baking spice. Not a big departure from the previous blends, but just different enough. And very hard to put down.

110.8 proof.

A / $140

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